黑洞社区

Architects fretting about future workloads following last week鈥檚 Brexit vote are seeing fears confirmed after a number of firms made job losses this week and a key survey said the wider construction industry had turned in its weakest performance for seven years.

Make said it was having to let go of 10 people in its London studio 鈥� around 7% of its total staff 鈥� which founder Ken Shuttleworth said was 鈥渄ue to the economic uncertainty surrounding the European referendum鈥�.

He added: 鈥淚t is never an easy decision to have to make but was unavoidable in the wake of serious economic volatility. The industry is reeling from Brexit and we hope that stability will return to the markets as soon as possible.鈥�

Sheppard Robson also said it was having to make a handful of staff redundant - believed to be in single figures - because of the Brexit vote.

The moves follow a warning last week from the chief executive of Aukett Swanke 鈥� the country鈥檚 only listed architect 鈥� that the wider economy would suffer as a result of the vote to leave.

Nicholas Thompson, Aukett Swanke鈥檚 chief executive, said: 鈥淲hat is clear is that the already slowing UK economy will continue to level out and that may affect employment.鈥�

Thompson also said Europeans at the firm鈥檚 London office were worried about their employment status once the UK quits the EU. Just over 40 people from the firm鈥檚 140 London staff are EU nationals and he added: 鈥淸Our staff] are worried because there has been no precedent in their lifetimes of such an event.鈥�

And David Savage, associate principal at HKS, said overseas staff at the firm鈥檚 Soho office 鈥� which employs people from 24 different countries out of 70 staff 鈥� had taken the result badly.

鈥淔or many of them there was inevitably a feeling of hurt from the perception, perhaps, that the UK did not want them here.鈥� But he added: 鈥淣othing could be further from the truth as every member of staff in the London office is there on merit.鈥�

Meanwhile, the Markit/CIPS construction purchasing managers鈥� index fell to 46.0 in June, its lowest level since June 2009. It had been 51.2 in May. A figure above 50 indicates expansion - below that, contraction.

Tim Moore, senior economist at Markit, said most of the data was collected before last month鈥檚 EU referendum.

But he warned that was a bad sign: 鈥淭he extent and speed of the downturn in the face of political and economic uncertainty is a clear warning flag for the wider post-Brexit economic outlook.鈥�

And he added: 鈥淭he worry is that the ensuing political turmoil will hit construction spending decisions for some time to come.鈥�

House building fell at its fastest rate since December 2012 while commercial building work also recorded a limp set of figures, posting one of its weakest readings since early 2010.